6 Months of Reading

What I read (finished!) during the first half of 2023.

A few months ago I asked via my Stories and Twitter if people set reading goals. Some did but 80% did not. Here’s some of why those people don’t:

“When I do and life gets in the way, then I feel like a failure.”

“Reading is pleasure and I don’t want to measure pleasure,”

“I set a reading goal for myself and started using Goodreads. It completely killed my enjoyment so I stopped tracking,”

I don’t set reading goals. (Have I ever?) But I did wonder —for about a hot second—why not. And then, I knew.

Maybe like you, I tend to get overly obsessed on productivity.

How much am I putting out?

Did I get “enough” done today?

Me on vacation recently having done absolutely no work that day.

Tracking books is a little like tracking calories. It's keeping an ideology (in this case productivity culture) pulsing in my brain that is oppressive and harmful to my well-being. Instead of reading when I feel like it, I'll read when I feel like I have to so that I can keep up with the goal (and of course surpass it because it’s me and who am I kidding?). Instead of eating what and when I feel like it (intuitive eating), I’ll eat when I feel like I deserve it ("I can eat this cookie because I worked out,”). It's diet culture but with work. So no reading goals for me because while I'm cognizant of how damaging productivity culture is for me, it's still hard to recognize it when I'm there.

But I do like to share what I read and while I haven’t really tracked my reading in a few years (see 2021 here), the list below (not in any order) is what I read and finished Jan-June. “Finished” meaning I read the whole thing. I generally finish maybe 1/2 of what I start. I have sky high standards for books so if it’s not ringing a few key bells for me, I put it down. The bolded titles are the best ones of the bunch.

1. Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano (f)

2. Olga Dies Dreaming - Xochitl Gonzalez (f)

3. Chain Gang All Stars - Nana K (f)

4. Coco Chanel and The Pulse of History - Rhonda Garelick (nf)

5. Water Ghosts - Shawna Yang Ryan (f)

6. Why Fish Don’t Exist - Lulu Miller (m)

7. Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia (f)

8. The Part That Burns - Jeannine Ouelette (m)

9. Age of Vice - Deepti Kapoor (f)

10. Weyward - Emilia Hart (f)

11. The Beautiful Fall - Alicia Drake (nf)

12. Death’s Summer Coat - Brandy Schillace (nf)

13. The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah (f)

14. Playing With America’s Doll - Emilie Zaslow (nf)

15. A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers - Joanna Biggs (nf)

16. We All Want Impossible Things - Catherine Newman (f)

17. Dare Wright and The Lonely Doll- Brooke Ashley (nf)

18. Shocking Life - Elsa Schiaparelli (m)

19. You Could Make This Place Beautiful - Maggie Smith (m)

20. Body Work - Melissa Febos (nf)

21. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver (f)

22. Strangers to Ourselves- Rachel Aviv (nf)

23. The Wife - Meg Wolitzer (f)

24. Where The Forest Meets The Stars - Glendy Vanderah (f)

Right now I’m in the middle of a few that are incredible (lucky me!): In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and Fat Talk by Virginia Sole-Smith. And a few that are…fine but let’s end with the desserts that I’m salivating over!

What’s up next that I’m excited about:

Finding My Way by Robin Schepper (m)

Bushwacking by Jennifer McGaha (m)

The Best Minds:A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intention by Jonathan Rosen (nf)

Entitled by Kate Manne (nf)

And you? What are you reading that you’ve loved? And- I’m still collecting your fave memoir recommendations so please share yours.

Here (up!) or in the comments.

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What’s On My Mind:

• When my daughter was sixteen months I found doTerra. I still wasn’t feeling like myself and was desperate for something to get back that old me. I’d had a small business before and the idea of “working on your own schedule” with something pretty like essential oils appealed to me. My involvement didn’t last more than a year but the allure of a beautiful product at the height of wellness culture early 2010s was hard to resist. This story about the Lularoe “consultants” who sold the product resonated. A fascinating look instead this once booming MLM company.

• Speaking of productivity, this piece has been everywhere but “productivity as savior” is too excellent not to share broadly. So here is Dr Pooja Lakshmin’s recent Substack How To Let Go of Your Productivity Addiction.

• Summer is beach but it’s also baseball. Happily I live in the heart of the little big leagues and the place where the best sports movie of all time was filmed. A look at baseball and Bull Durham 35 years (!) later.

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Thanks for being here. Stay well, safe and cool. See you soon!

f= fiction

m= memoir

nf= non fiction